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celestialship · 2 months

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Just One Night

An exhausted Meg allows Johnny Silverhand to take over her body for the night - and then has to deal with the consequences.

word count: 2,400

content warning: swearing, violence, suggestive material?

1 hour left until the meet.

Meg sat in her apartment in Japantown, the plush seats of the couch cushions doing nothing to make her body feel any less like it had been run over by a car and then subsequently dragged through the streets of Night City. Hunched over where she sat and running her hands through her hair in an attempt to self-soothe, Meg doubted at this point she’d be feeling any better before the meet with the client.

What day was it? Thursday? Meg had been awake for almost 2 days. Sure, they’d gotten a couple winks between jobs, but it was never more than an hour. Meg’s body was aching for a good night’s sleep, but Meg needed the eddies and the jobs were coming in steady. Who knew how long it’d be before work was this consistent again?

“I can feel it too, y’know.” The sudden voice and materialization of Johnny Silverhand a couple feet away nearly made Meg jump out of her chrome in surprise, and she cursed under her breath at how easily startled she was. The ghost of the infamous terrorist appeared out of the corner of her eye, leaning back against the wall of her apartment, arms crossed and adjusting his sunglasses on his face. Meg had to wonder if he was actively trying to look cool, or if it was always that effortless. “You feel like shit, Meg.”

“Thanks,” Meg grumbled. Before Johnny Silverhand’s engram was put into her brain, allowing her and only her to see the supposed dead rocker, Meg’s voice was the sole one in her head that she had to tell to shut up from time to time. Now she had two voices.

“Didn’t mean it like an insult, just statin’ a fact. You’re exhausted.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Meg snapped, groaning and rubbing their eyes.

“Would ya let me finish? Christ,” Johnny scoffed. He moved away from the wall and glitched out of Meg’s vision, reappearing directly in front of her, causing Meg to almost jump again. Not this time. “Let me take over.”

“Excuse me?” Meg glared.

“You’re exhausted, you’ve been up for nearly two days at this point. Yet you still have jobs lined up.” Johnny shook his head in a supposed empathetic manner, but Meg was skeptical as to how genuine it was. “If you let me take over, I can do all the jobs for you, you get some rest in the back of your head.”

“No way,” Meg snapped, but Johnny saying the word “rest” made her body ache with longing. Being able to check out sounded really nice, but letting Johnny Silverhand’s personality in the engram in her head, take control of her body? This was the terrorist who blew up Arasaka tower before flatlining. Who knew what he would decide to do on a whim with Meg?

“Come on, Meg, it’s just for one night.” Johnny was practically whining like a schoolboy. “One night. ‘Sides, don’t you trust me, after all we’ve been through?”

“No.”

“I know you’re lying. Ya don’t hate me nearly as much as you may think. In fact, I think you’ve come around on me a lot. You may even like me.”

“Johnny, don’t fuck with me. You’re not going to be good and just do my work for me. What’s even in it for you?” Meg retorted.

Johnny put a hand to his chest and took off his sunglasses to look into her eyes. “Well, Meg, I care. I just want you to get some rest.”

“Fuck off.”

“Okay, well, maybe it’s getting annoying sharing a body with you while you’re sore and aching and acting like a brat,” Johnny shot back. There it was. There was Silverhand’s real personality. “And yes, okay, maybe I will treat myself to a drink or two. But I won’t get you shitfaced or in any real trouble. I have to share a body with you, remember? I’ll be dealing with the consequences, too.”

“Well, I appreciate the honesty,” Meg muttered. She slouched on the couch, staring at the floor. Time was ticking. She felt half-dead. How badly did she want to take a shot at some rest? Was she really going to let Johnny Silverhand front for the night, possibly risking her reputation as a merc, her chances of a severe hangover, and whatever else he had in store?

But rest…

“Just one night, Megs. You know I won’t do anything to hurt you. You actually may like it.”

The way he said it made the hair on Meg’s neck stand on end. Maybe it was a small enough response that he didn’t notice or feel it. “Okay, okay, one night.” They could see Johnny’s face light up in response. “One night. But Johnny, if you do anything to fuck me over–”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Meg.” He flashed a smile, which was a rare occurrence. But Johnny was about to be back in the world for the first time in decades. Meg’s nerves spiked a little as she thought to herself: any average “ghost” would probably go crazy if they were allowed back into the world of the living. How crazy would Johnny Silverhand go?

But Meg had to trust him. Trust him enough for one night. Besides, they were so tired. Letting Johnny do their work for the night would at least allow the night to go by faster as they slipped into the back of their mind, and maybe they’d be able to come to and immediately go to sleep. “Fine. It’s all yours.”

“Your body, you mean? Thank you, Meg. I’ll take good care of you.”

What was with this teasing? Meg didn’t have time to think of it more, though, because she slipped into unconsciousness.

***

Well, total unconsciousness would be a lie. Meg saw bits of the night. The entire night.

First there was a flash of the meet. Meg speaking in Meg’s voice, but not using their own words. The client seemed a little afraid. Meg left the meet with a hunger stirring in their chest, a zeal that Meg had not felt in…had she ever felt that enthusiastic?

Then came the gunfire. Meg watched through her eyes as members of a street gang hit the floor while she stormed through a warehouse, bullets going through one head after another. After finding a man in a back office, Meg put a knife to his neck, took a datashard from his hand, then slit his throat.

Eddies transferred in exchange for the datashard. Now Meg was headed into a new building, greeting a man who had an operating chair and a computer hooked up to it. A ripperdoc - a man who could work on the body with cybernetics or other body modifications. What was happening…?

Just as quickly Meg’s vision flashed to a nightclub. Meg walked in as a bartender greeted her, and she watched herself cut the bartender off to order a drink. Then another. Then another. Then another…

Then, having more difficulty seeing reality now, Meg was surrounded by loud music, flashing lights, pushing bodies. As someone shoved her, and Meg returned the shove with a punch to the face, all hell broke loose. Then darkness.

***

Blinking her eyes open, Meg was greeted with a fan slowly spinning overhead on the ceiling. The room was dark, the lights all shut off and curtains closed, and Meg felt a soft mattress beneath her back. Somehow she had managed to get home. Slowly sitting up, Meg hissed in pain as she was immediately greeted by a headache, which seemed to creep all the way down her body. How did Meg feel even worse than yesterday?

Medicine. They needed these body aches gone or they would be out of commission all day long. Meg forced their body to move, pushing their feet to the floor and rising to their full height, slowly stumbling to the bathroom. As they looked down at their body, they realized they were also in their pajamas: an old crop top and some comfortable shorts. It was like their body had been half punished, half gently taken care of, by–

Johnny. As Meg recollected their absence of memories of the night, hot anger flashed in their chest. He said he wouldn’t go crazy. He said he wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. Yet here she was, with a migraine and shooting, throbbing pain all throughout her body.

“Johnny,” she called out, intending it to sound angry, but it honestly sounded kind of pathetic. But he adhered to her call, materializing behind her in the bathroom mirror.

“You called?” he asked in a mock bow, before seeing her expression and realizing he was in deep shit. He immediately straightened himself up.

“What...did you do?” Meg demanded, propping herself with a hand on the sink as she rifled through the medicine cabinet.

“I took care of your job for you. You’re welcome.” Johnny said this firmly, as if he had been planning on this being his exact response, nothing more and nothing less.

“You’re welcome? I feel worse than yesterday, Johnny. I thought you were all about letting me rest.” Meg found the pain relievers and poured out two pills to take.

“Hey, not my fault if you just can’t handle me taking your body.”

“Fuck you, it’s more than a matter of ‘handling’ it. I saw bits of what you did, Johnny. You went out drinking - more drinking than what I’m used to doing - and got into fights, and killed more people than I would’ve liked–”

“Hey, you’re the one who gave up control, I just did what I thought was appropriate. And maybe I let you have some fun, Meg. You never let yourself have fun.”

“That’s not fun to me! I don’t do that shit because I don’t want to deal with the aftermath, with all of this!” Meg stopped her ranting by taking the pills, and Johnny took the silence to immediately butt back in.

“You didn’t die! I got you home, I got you in bed with the lights off for the inevitable hangover, I got you in your pajamas–”

“Wait, you changed my clothes?”

Johnny leaned his head back in a groan. “Christ, Meg, don’t be such a fucking girl scout. I–live–in–your–head!” Johnny tapped either side of his head to emphasize each word. “I’ve seen your body hundreds of times.”

Meg supposed she hadn’t thought about that before somehow, but thinking of it now made her face grow red, which made her scowl in turn, realizing it was hurting her image of being angry and having any sort of leverage over Johnny. “Whatever.” That was the closest she’d come to dropping the argument or thanking him for the bit of consideration he showed her. The anger was beginning to fade slightly - maybe her exhaustion just made it difficult for her to stay mad - but then she glanced down at her arm.

As Meg saw it, she suddenly remembered the part of the night where Johnny visited the ripperdoc. There on Meg’s right inner elbow was a big heart in black ink, with an arrow going through it, and text on the inside.

“JOHNNY + MEG”

If Meg was angry before, now she was furious. Livid. “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?” She shouted so loudly she was sure any neighbors could hear her screaming at the man inside her head.

Looking at Johnny for any kind of explanation, she just saw the rockerboy press his lips together, as if he had forgotten that he permanently marked her body without her knowledge. “Oh, yeah. That. …Surprise.”

“Surprise? That’s what you have to say to this?!” Meg held her arm up, rubbing at the tattoo and praying to whatever god was possibly alive that it wasn’t permanent. It was.

“You don’t like it?” Johnny asked, tilting his head.

“You really think I’m the type of woman to put a man’s name on my body?!” Her heart was pounding, and she could hardly figure out what argument to first raise about this. “Everyone’s going to think I’m with a man named Johnny!”

Johnny’s eyes widened, as if he had somehow not even considered this, and then a smile spread on his face, looking entirely too satisfied about this outcome. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah, really!” Meg shot back. “Who’s ever going to want to go out with someone with a tattoo like this? If I even had the time to–”

“Maybe I don’t want you to,” Johnny muttered.

This stopped Meg in her tracks. “Excuse me?”

Johnny hesitated, only for a second, but enough for Meg to notice. Then he scoffed. “Did you forget we’re essentially sharing a body, Meg? You really think it’d be comfortable for me to just be here dormant while you’re getting involved with someone?”

“It’s my body!” Meg retorted.

“Whatever. You know a ripperdoc could probably remove that tattoo anyway, if you hate it so much.” Johnny glitched out from where he stood and reappeared sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

There was silence between the two. Silence from Johnny - did he realize he may have gone a bit too far? Was this the closest he’d come to apologizing, ceasing to defend himself against Meg?

Meg sighed. She really didn’t feel like arguing anymore. Truthfully, she never liked arguing with Johnny, because she’d always feel worried about him being mad at her. Why she cared, she could never figure out. Maybe because like Johnny said, they were stuck “sharing” a body - even if it was, at the end of the day, her body. And she knew that Johnny knew that. And respected that. He was right - a ripperdoc could take the tattoo out. Tattoos were never truly permanent.

“I’m going back to bed,” she muttered, putting an end to the heated exchange. She didn’t feel like rushing out to remove the tattoo. She could get it removed whenever she felt like it. Maybe some other day, when she had the free time. She never had free time. Her free time was best spent sleeping anyway.

“Sweet dreams,” Johnny muttered back, also seeming tired of the argument.

Meg walked back towards the bathroom door, but glanced back at Johnny before walking out. “...Thank you for getting me back home safely.”

Johnny looked up at her and gave a sincere nod. “Anytime, Megs.”

#this man has been in my head for weeks now #based on a real mission in the game btw. hehe #my writing #f/o x s/i #f/o x self insert #f/o #self ship #self shipping #self insert #💣#meg.txt

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